Treating Soil

Sterility of Soils: There are both useful and/or harmful microbes in soil. Sometimes the fungi in soil may harm the plant development.

MighySteam® was used on untreated "dirty" garden soil, which was then incubated for 42 hours to test for bacterial and fungus growth. On the left is the bacterial/fingii growth as found on the soil sample treated with the MightySteam®. On the right is the control sample, featuring a high colony count (from bacteria and fungii) compared to the treated soil.

MightySteam® Treated Soil
incubated for 42 hours

Untreated Soil
incubated for 42 hours

In addition to testing the number of bacteria colonies in the soil, the growth of each plant potted in sterile and non sterile soil was monitored during a 49 day period.

MightySteam® Treated Plant

Untreated Plant

The visual difference is apparent, with the MightySteam® treated soil plant featuring more blooms and a greater quantity of leaves. In addition, the MightySteam® treated plant experienced fewer brown leaves and had less leaves fallen off by day 22 and day 44. The tables below illustrate these two points.

Brown Leaves on 22nd and 44th Days

Leaves Fallen on 22nd and 44th Days

The MightySteam® treatment experiment also measured the height of plants treated with the device. As shown below, the plant in MightySteam® treated soil is roughly 9% taller after 44 days than the plant grown in untreated soil. There is no reason to believe that all soil should be steamed but at least in the instance above it appears to have helped.

Plant Height on 22nd and 44th Days

What does this mean for MightySteam®users?

In certain applications such as small scale field nurserys and greenhouses users will be able disinfect soil, allowing for better growth during the early stages of a plant's life. Pretreating soil with steam also eliminates some weeds and nuisance growths, but does not protect against cross-contamination. Soil sterilization not only kills weeds and many soil bacteria, it is also much safer than traditional fumigants such as Methyl Bromide. Regardless please note that the experimental studies reported above may not be accurate or directly applicable to all soils and soil compositions.